Enhancing the provisioning of ecosystem services in South Korea under climate change: The benefits and pitfalls of current forest management strategies

We present a study about the integrated impact of adaptive management and climate change using spatially explicit tools at first time for assessing changes in forest ecosystem services in South Korea. The aims of this study were to (i) project potential changes among forest ecosystem services under various scenarios, (ii) assess the impact of forest management (Sc1, controlled; Sc2, business as usual; and Sc3, adaptive management) and climate change through comparison among them, and (iii) find insight for strategies to implementing both sustainable society and environment. For this purpose, the integrated tool was applied to analyze the changes in five ecosystem services: forest carbon storage, carbon sequestration, industrial wood production, freshwater supply, and forest recreation. The simulated results show that the ratio of these five ecosystem services of Sc3-to-Sc2 in the 2040s was estimated as 88.4%, 114.7%, 105.4%, 228.2%, and 86.5%, respectively. These results showed clear trade-offs between industrial wood production and freshwater supply on one side and forest recreation and forest carbon storage on the other side. In the case of carbon sequestration, the harvest activity might provide a negative effect in the short term, but it with a longer term perspective could be positive through reforestation activity. In addition, this study showed that future climate change until 2050 in Korea could have a generally negative influence on forest carbon sequestration but that these negative effects could be partly offset through harvest management. Therefore, the plans of the spatial distribution of management activities for the equilibrium of demand and supply in ecosystem services should be required.

Automated summary

This study examines the integrated impact of adaptive management and climate change on forest ecosystem services in South Korea using spatially explicit tools. Results indicate trade-offs between industrial wood production and freshwater supply, and between forest recreation and forest carbon storage. Harvest activity may have short-term negative effects on carbon sequestration, but could be positive in the long term through reforestation activities. Future climate change in Korea until 2050 is projected to have a generally negative influence on forest carbon sequestration, which could be partially offset through harvest management activities to maintain equilibrium in ecosystem services.